Video: Arranging the rest of the song

We have spent most of our time so far working in a 16- to 24-bar section of the arrangement and now it's time to build out the remaining sections. The finished arrangement should not feel forced or edited, but natural. All sections need to make sense with one another, especially during the transitions. Radio arrangements have no wasted space, and if that means your arrangement is three minutes and twenty seconds, as opposed to three minutes and thirty seconds, that's fine. Don't get hung up on the length of time, but do keep in mind that most radio stations won't play songs over four minutes long.

Watch the Online Video Course Remixing Techniques: Arranging and Song Form

2h 44mIntermediateDec 10, 2012

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In this course, author Josh Harris shows how to create radio and club arrangements, and a radio edit of a club mix. He utilizes four different digital audio workstations (DAWs)—Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Logic, and Reason—and shows how to build different arrangements from the ground up, by adding guitars, drums, bass, and synths. Each DAW explores different types of arranging scenarios. Plus, learn how to add ear candy and take your arrangements to another level.

Topics include:

Reviewing the different types of arranging: music, remix, and radio/club

Arranging the rest of the song

We have spent most of our time so far working in a 16- to 24-bar section of thearrangement and now it's time to build out the remaining sections.The finished arrangement should not feel forced or edited, but natural.All sections need to make sense with one another, especially during the transitions.Radio arrangements have no wasted space, and if that means your arrangement isthree minutes and twenty seconds, as opposed to three minutes and thirtyseconds, that's fine.Don't get hung up on the length of time, but do keep in mind that most radiostations won't play songs over four minutes long.

My ideal time is somewhere between three minutes and twenty seconds and threeminutes and forty-five seconds.Although you won't be able to follow along with me step by step, I will nowprovide you with an overview of how I build out a radio arrangement.(music playing)Let's spend the next few minutes taking a look at how I built out the radio arrangement.

We'll start up here at the vocals, and you'll notice that there's an edit pointin the background vocals right here towards the end.I felt that the background vocals went one cycle through the course too long,and that they should end with the lead vocals.So, I cut out 8 bars of background vocals and shoved the last 8 bars ofbackground vocals over to the leftso now, the background vocals and the lead vocals start and end at the same place.I built out the rest of the drums and added some programming on top of the loopsthat we had had previously in the arrangement.

Let's solo out the drums and take a listen.Primarily on the chorus is where you will hear the elements that I added.So this is a few bars before chorus 1.(music playing)So, you can see that I added a ride cymbal and a tambourine and a crash cymbalhappening every four bars here.

And I'm adding a little bit of metal up top in the drums. Those frequencieshelp the chorus punch a little bit, pop a little bit, feel like it elevates andlifts to another level.I recorded this synth bass part in the bridge. Previously, that section of thearrangement was empty.(music playing)You probably noticed as that section played that there's a little bass fall, orwhat we call a glissando, something that you would hear in old funk and R&Brecords. It's sliding your hand down the keyboard very quickly to add a waulsound and let's solo it out, we can take a listen.

(music playing)And it adds a little bit of flavor, I think a bit as a transitional part,leading from one section to another.I worked on an intro that's four bars long, with verse one starting to measure five.(music playing)And we can take a listen to the last few bars and hear the cold ending.(music playing)The arrangement clocks in at just over three and a half minutes long, which is aperfect amount of time for a radio edit.

Now keep in mind that later in the course, I'm going to be adding just a fewmore elements of ear candy.So, I would say that this arrangement in its current form is about 95% done, andwe'll take some time to add the last 5% later on.

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Learn by watching, listening, and doing, Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along Premium memberships include access to all exercise files in the library.

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Learn by watching, listening, and doing! Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along. Exercise files are available with all Premium memberships.
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